Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0098/00981.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 10KB | 179 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00981}
$Pretitle{290}
$Title{Costa Rica
Chapter 5C.   Foreign Security Assistance}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald P. Whitaker}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{costa
states
security
united
rica
assistance
facilities
military
central
forces}
$Date{1983}
$Log{}
Country:     Costa Rica
Book:        Costa Rica, A Country Study
Author:      Donald P. Whitaker
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1983

Chapter 5C.   Foreign Security Assistance

     Costa Rica has long depended on outsiders to provide what arms and other
equipment its security forces have needed. After more than a decade when it
had acquired few new weapons beyond some arms received at the time that Costa
Rica had been involved in funneling weapons to the Sandinistas in 1978-79, the
government sought foreign sources to strengthen the security forces in the
early 1980s. Because of the inability of the struggling economy to pay for an
arms buildup, the government sought, and for the most part received, military
assistance on concessional terms from its foreign partners.

     The United States has been the source of most of the weapons and
equipment in the Costa Rican inventory. Much of this materiel-small arms and
light weapons-had been delivered in the years before a 1974 ruling went into
effect in the United States prohibiting assistance to foreign police forces.
Significant United States military aid was given during World War II under the
lend-lease program. Between 1952 and 1968 the United States transferred
US$930,000 worth of arms and equipment to Costa Rica under the Military
Assistance Program (MAP); the terms did not require reimbursement in dollars.
During the 1960s nonlethal equipment and training were also provided by the
Office of Public Safety in the United States Agency for International
Development, which specialized in training foreign police forces. The United
States military was also heavily involved in training Costa Rican security
personnel. Between 1952 and 1968 a total of 711 Costa Ricans were sent to the
United States for training under the International Military Education and
Training (IMET) program. The United States Army School of the Americas at Fort
Gulick, Panama, trained Costa Ricans between 1946 and 1968. Military
assistance from the United States during this period was administered by a
United States Army mission accredited to Costa Rica.

     In 1968 the United States ceased providing military training and
equipment to Costa Rica's police forces. A United States congressional ruling
in 1978, however, defined the Civil Guard as having primarily military
responsibilities and permitted selective programs to be instituted to improve
the security forces. That year the United States Department of Defense was
able to guarantee a US$5 million loan to Costa Rica for the purchase of five
light patrol boats.

     North American assistance began to increase in the United States fiscal
year (FY-see Glossary) 1981, when 37 students were trained under the IMET
program, 20 of them at Fort Gulick. In FY 1982 the United States provided
US$2 million in military assistance under MAP and trained 55 Costa Rican
guardsmen. The US$3 million in MAP aid given in FY 1983 included US$750,000
for field equipment, such as tents and boots; US$850,000 for improving the
country's police communications system; and US$280,000 for repairing one of
the damaged Civil Guard helicopters. Other funds were devoted to supplying
outboard patrol boats, 52 four-wheel-drive trucks and .30-caliber ammunition.
Some 70 guards were also slated to be trained at Fort Gulick in 1983. In
August of that year, a nine-man United States training team arrived in the
country to teach a group of Civil Guardsmen who had been selected to be
instructors. Other United States training teams were scheduled to go to Costa
Rica to train other Civil Guard personnel in equipment maintenance and repair.

     Other countries also provided Costa Rica with security assistance. Panama
and Venezuela have been the most prominent, having supported Costa Rica in the
late 1970s when Somoza was threatening reprisals for its assistance to the
Sandinista rebels. In 1982 and 1983 Venezuela provided the Costa Rican Civil
Guardsmen with M-14 rifles and uniforms. Panamanian security aid was more
extensive, and the Panamanian National Guard trained over 400 Civil Guardsmen
from the Condor and Cobra battalions. On a visit to Costa Rica in 1983,
Panamanian National Guard leader General Ruben Dario Paredes offered his
country's "unconditional help" to "defend [Costa Rica] from any attack from a
neighboring country." More controversially, he stated "with all due respect
for the Costa Ricans, the Panamanians consider that the current situation has
extended Panama's borders up to the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan borderline." The
general later declared that his statement had not been meant to imply that
Panamanian troops would be sent into Costa Rican territory.

     Costa Rica also received security assistance from countries outside the
hemisphere in the early 1980s. Israel sent a shipment of Galil rifles as well
as a group of experts who instructed Costa Ricans in combating terrorism. The
country also received 40 to 50 police patrol cars from the Republic of Korea
(South Korea), and the Taiwanese government sent riot gear and uniforms.

The Prison System

     The prison system is composed of 31 so-called central penitentiaries and
a number of prisons and detention facilities distributed throughout the
country on a broad geographic basis. The central penitentiaries are the
principal penal institutions and in 1978 included 2,083 inmates, the majority
of the prison population. The Ministry of Justice is charged with the
administration and operation of the central penitentiaries; the subordinate
facilities are supervised by local authorities.

     In 1978 over 60 percent of the inmate population of the central
penitentiaries was housed in two prisons-La Penitencaria Central and La
Reforma Prision, both in the San Jose area. Other major facilities included
La San Lucas Prision on an island in the Golfo de Nicoya and the Tierra Blanca
juvenile detention facility in Cartago.

     Except for the central penitentiaries, the prison system is loosely
organized and receives little centralized guidance or direction. Few penal
statistics are published, and local authorities have a free hand in methods
and procedures. There are jails or detention facilities in most communities
down to the canton level, and these range from simple enclosures with little
security and few amenities to well-constructed prison buildings that provide
sound protection and adequate accommodations.

     The Civil Guard maintains a jail in each of the provincial capitals, and
the political chief is responsible for providing confinement facilities at
the canton level. The size and character of these facilities are largely
determined by the size of the community and the area's crime rate, but few
subordinate areas under Rural Assistance Guard jurisdiction have formal
facilities that measure up to even the limited standards of the provincial
prisons. A provision of the Penal Code requires penal magistrates to visit
prisons in their jurisdictional area at least once a week in order to hear
complaints and confer with the wardens.

     Prison facilities were generally regarded as old, lacking proper
sanitation, and being in very poor condition. In order to redress these
problems, the government in 1978 announced that it would undertake a [C]100
million program of construction and improvements of the central prisons.

     The Constitution (Article 40) states: "No one shall be submitted to
cruel or degrading treatment nor to life imprisonment.... A declaration
obtained through violence shall have no value." Despite poor physical
facilities, Costa Rican treatment of prisoners in 1983 was regarded as one
of the most progressive in the hemisphere. Inmates are classed and treated
according to four main